I’m not really sure what to make of that.

2.  I got this for my niece and nephew for Christmas. I will put it together and show it to them tomorrow. I expect some hell to break loose.

3.  Apologies for my silence – I feel a writing streak coming on.

4. I’m mailing Little Filthy to the highest bidder. He’s packed and ready to go.

So you’ve heard of me, the Big Sister who can now just be referred to as BS.  About me – a 39 yr old working mom in a NYC suburb.  Although I’m not from the East coast, I have lived here now for about 15 years which means I have:

1- evolved my ability to be an aggressive driver;

2- temporarily became a disciple of eating (insert food fad here: cupcakes, rice pudding, boba tea, meatballs, ramen noodles etc) and (insert exercise/health fad here: yoga, jivamukti yoga, bar method, blueprint cleanse);

3- a heightened intolerance for people who lack self-awareness (loud talkers on cell phones, people who walk on the side walk in NYC shoulder to shoulder);  AND

4 – a big ego.

I have two kids; I’ll call them Ferdinand (3 yrs old) and Isabella (5 yrs old) not because they’re Spanish but because they behave like royalty.   I’ll spend more time discussing them later – today’s entry is about husbands.

I was recently in Hawaii for work.

Really for work?  Yes, I did work (as least as possible) and yes, I did eat (fad foods:  Puka dog, loco moco) and yes, I did try paddleboarding.  The following week, friends of ours were hosting a Hawaii-themed party so I thought would it be cute if we ALL (the family) wore the same printed Hawaiian outfits.  Me and Isabella in matching MuMu dresses (think Mrs. Roper in colorful Hibiscus prints) with plumeria in our hair, and Daddy and Ferdinand wearing same print in Hawaiian shirts.  This is how the conversation went down.

BS to spouse:  “Hey, I was thinking that for the Hawaiian party next week we could all wear matching outfits, really go with the theme.  All four of us in cute bright printed Hawaiian shirts and dresses.”

Do you all have images of Griswold family wearing matching berets?

Spouse: “Really?? I think you guys would look cute but I think I’ll abstain.”

BS: “But come on, the kids are only young for a short amount of time. I’m only going to be able to dress them for a brief time so if we ever want to do it, it’s now.  It’ll be cute!”

Spouse:  “No”

So, spouse is usually a good sport about things but I’m sure he was thinking, “Geeez, our friends all know you have my nutsack in a sling, do we really have to arrive at a party and announce it with a superbowl ad?”

I think you guys all know the couples I’m talking about here. Where you know that the wife runs the show and rules the household.  I’m not saying that my house is like that but maybe it’s more important for my friends to think it’s run like that.  In the end, the kids wore matching outfits, we just honored the theme of the party by getting shit-faced on mai-tais.

Glad to insert myself into RandomEsq’s blog here  – Mahalo!

Do you have some examples you’ve seen where you can tell that the woman is totally in charge, bossing her husband around?

You know what my sister said?

“Yes.”

This both makes me laugh and cringe at the same time.  But mostly laugh.

2.  I spoke with my sister this morning. She said, about my nephew, “He’s sitting in the middle of an inner tube. In the yard. With a mouthful of waffle. And a strawberry in his hand.”

I think this is awesome.

3.  Speaking of things that crack me up, I thought my Jesus Rapture picture was very funny. My sister, however, did not.  I sent her a text message that said, “The Rapture is tomrorow!” with the picture attached.

Her response: “wtf??”

Then, “Why do u have a photo of jc w ur name on it”

then, “Where did u get that??”

I said, “You want one, don’t you?”

She said, “No. Not funny to me. Dumb. Read Bossy Pants. That’s funny.”

Sometimes, everything my sister does strikes me as hilarious.

Now, let me explain what you’re about to see… This was a workbook of sorts that we each colored while in kindergarten about ourselves, our lives and our family. With that, let’s get started.

PAGE 1:  THIS IS MY HAND

We were each supposed to draw a picture of our hand. Here is my sister’s hand, complete with manicured nails and a ring.

Let’s see my hand:

Seems okay so far, right?

PAGE 2: THIS IS MY FOOT

Sister’s foot – complete with toes and instep. Also, possibly some injuries.

My foot – notice that I did not even bother to take off my shoe.

PAGE 3: THIS IS MY HAIR

Sister’s hair: She took time to give herself a part.

My hair: I took time to give myself blue eyes.

Note the obvious family resemblance.

PAGE 4: THIS IS MY HOUSE

My sister lives in a significantly more beautiful home than I do. Her home has a garage, driveway, door, window, chimney, tree and tulips.

My house is yellow. Bonus:  roof.

PAGE 5: THIS IS MY BED

Sister’s bed has a headboard, footboard, pillows, and ruffles. Also, a person added for size scale.

Meanwhile, I apparently thought the square in which we were to depict our bed was the actual bed. Also, I couldn’t be bothered to pick up another color crayon so my bed matches my house.

PAGE 6: THIS IS MY FAMILY

My sister has taken the time to give my father glasses and a tie. Also, note the accurate representation that my mother’s hair is darker than my father’s.

I don’t even know what to say about my picture.

PAGE 7: THIS IS ME. I AM WONDERFUL!

(seriously, that’s what it says at the top of the page):

Sister: Ahh, the colors!

Me: I included the full page, for maximum effect. WTF.

PAGE 8: THIS IS MY FAVORITE TOY

My sister enjoys her yo yo!

This is my favorite toy.

Can’t tell what it is? Let me help.

Clearly, it’s a blender, people.

There you have it. Sister vs. Random: Kindergarten Style

Share This ]]> http://randomesq.com/2011/01/10/sister-vs-random-the-kindergarten-years/feed/ 21 http://randomesq.com/2010/11/14/keep-away-from-children-also-dont-swallow-your-spit/ http://randomesq.com/2010/11/14/keep-away-from-children-also-dont-swallow-your-spit/#comments Sun, 14 Nov 2010 21:08:14 +0000 Random Esquire http://randomesq.com/?p=3044 End of year means I end up spending the rest of my flex pay stocking up on various OTC medications lest my immune system fail me and I suffer a cold.  I studied a box of cold medicine today.  A couple of things struck me.

First, it said “Keep away from children.”  What do these people take me for, an idiot? If I have a cold, I’m obviously not going to be playing with children and infecting them.  Duh.

Second, the directions said “take with a full glass of water.”  I have two sizes of glasses in my cupboards.  One is about 10 ounces.  The other is around 16.  I wondered which one they meant.  I suppose they don’t even know what sizes I have so there must be some generic equivalent of a glass.  So I did what any red blooded American would do.

I googled that shit.

“Depends on the size of the glass” was a popular response.  Thank you, Google. But apparently, most people take a glass as the equivalent of a cup – 8 ounces.  So, take with a full 8 ounces.

Which made me wonder why a pharmaceutical company wouldn’t find it in their best interest to be more specific?  For instance: “Take with at least 8 ounces of water.”  Maybe they were more concerned about specifying that it should be water instead of, say, the generic ‘liquid‘ which I readily admit may allow me to interpret this loose language by chasing my medication with a beer.  And since a beer is 12 ounces, I’d feel rather like I’d complied fully as directed.

This then made me wonder what would happen if I tried to dry swallow the pill.  Or just suck on it until it melted away, like hard candy.  Surely, I’d swallow at least a few ounces of my own spit doing that, wouldn’t I? Though, honestly, the idea or recollection that we spend much of our day more or less swallowing our own spit was distasteful enough to think about that I briefly considered just becoming an open mouth drooler.

This then got me thinking about open-mouthers – a.k.a. Mouth Breathers.  Perhaps I’ve judged them too harshly.  While I previously just assumed that they had little concern for things other than rolling 16 sided dice and getting in line for the latest Will Shortz book, perhaps they are just hoping that they will swallow less spit purely through evaporation.

It occurs to me that I overthink some things.

2.  I spent Memorial Day on Lake Michigan, salmon fishing on a chartered boat.  One of the salty older men who was along on the trip told me a lot of stories that made me laugh.  When in college, he and a buddy thought that they would sign up for dance lessons as a way to meet girls.  They walked to the class congratulating themselves and when they got there, each was given a mannequin on roller skates.  He said it was horrible.

3.  I got a Droid Incredible. This means that I may become perfectly obnoxious posting pictures of everything because it is now super easy from my phone.  Having said that, while I understand that some of you (especially if you follow me on twitter) would appreciate a picture of Turtle or Permanently Pregnant girl, I have learned my lesson about trying to take pictures of people in public places.  I am reformed.

4.  The dog and I are going to have a beer and finish watching the hockey game.

CAUSE THAT HOW WE DO.

and damned if I didn’t almost steam my genitals.

2.  On the train this morning, I observed a young man whose natural expression was… slack jawed.  His lips were like two ships that pass in the night but never meet.  I don’t get it.  But I sat there and thought of all the other jacked up analogies I could make about his teeth.  Like, his upper lip was a window shade that wouldn’t pull down.  Or his upper lip was like a belly shirt that exposed too much teeth.  Dumb shit like that.

3.  I asked my sister her thoughts on towel sharing and informed her that some people wash their towels after every use.  Her response was, “Those people never went to college.”

4.  Editor and I had a beer outdoors on Friday night.  In the vein of being keenly observant, there was a woman at the next table and I could not help but notice her.  This is because her chin seemingly never met a jaw of any type but simply bled into her neck.  With her hair pulled back, she was remarkably turtle-like.  I suppose some people just inevitably get compared to animals.  I think, perhaps, the turtle is not so much a flattering comparison.

5.  My niece and nephew are big Little Filthy fans.  When they saw him on Sunday, I explained that he had received a shot in the leg and it had made his leg sore.   Remember when my niece pointed to Little Filthy’s exit door and asked, “What’s that hole?”   Well, this time, my nephew pointed to it and said, “is that shot? boo boo!”  Yeah.  He thinks Little Filthy’s hole is where he got his shot.  I don’t bother explaining things but cautioned against touching anything.

6.  I got my hair cut last week at a new place.  This means that I did not receive the kind ministrations of The Bumper.  The Bumper is the pretty young woman who would wash my hair prior to my cut and she would…*ahem* …bump me.  Honestly, people, it’s hard not to grin just typing that.  Anyway – no Bumper so therefore, no bumps.  Because, in case you didn’t know, it’s rude to dive for a bump.  Now you know. It’s one to grow on.

7.  When Little Filthy was at the vet last week, his anal glands were expressed.  The vet said: “they were quite full.”  This somehow makes me feel negligent.  I decided to see if I could learn how to do this so perhaps I could take care of this little issue when giving Little Filthy a bath.  Naturally, I turned to Youtube.

After a few videos, I decided that there are some things best left to the vet…  left to the vet and some dark room in the back where no one talks about what’s going on or what they’ve seen.

Matt is 9 and a neighbor and my daughter’s best friend (not that she would admit this in a million years, he is a boy after all). Daughter and Matt were goofing around and decided to play ‘dog‘. By that I mean that Matt pretended to be a dog and Daughter pretended to be his owner.

I was in an adjacent room, paying very little attention because that is the kind of attentive parent I am. Then, I hear Daughter speaking with an English accent – quite a decent one at that.

She is saying stuff like ‘Now you be a good doggy or I shall have to become more strict‘ and ‘You are being a very, very bad boy‘ and ‘If you keep being naughty, I shall have to punish you.  BAD doggy‘ and he is making sad puppy noises.

I decided to take a closer look (what with being supermom and all) and there is Daughter, holding the end of a piece of twine as a leash, with the other end forming a ‘collar’ around Matt’s neck.  Matt is on all fours, seemingly content with his role in this little drama. It was reminiscent of – well things I felt I shouldn’t be thinking of.  Later, I was recounting the story to my husband, telling him how Daughter was pretending to be a British dog owner.

Daughter overheard and jumped in to correct me: “Mom – I wasn’t a dog OWNER.  I was a dog TRAINER.  Because Matt was a very, very bad dog and needed a lot of training.”

Well that really put any doubts to rest.

My little one is practicing to be a dominatrix.

And a rather good one too – the next day she played over at Matt’s house and came home sporting a shiny new pedicure.

She proudly told me Matt had polished her toes.

I put my laptop on the table, pulled up the video on  YouTube and announced to my niece and nephew that it was time to dance.  I hit play.

And they were thoroughly unimpressed.

They stood there and stared at Beyonce dancing and then looked at me.

My niece said, “I don’t want to listen to this anymore.”

My nephew said, “Twinkle twinkle!”

Science FAIL.

2.  Last night I ate gingersnaps before bed.  And in my dreams, I fell in love with a ginger.

BigLittleWolf asked me what would happen if I ate chocolate chip cookies before bed.  So I ran to the corner and got these.

Will let you know how it turns out in the morning.

UPDATE – 8:00 A.M.  I don’t remember my dreams, if I had any.  Clearly, chocolate chip cookies wipe your memory or prevent dream formation.

3.  As you know, I like to take pictures of food.  I may have left out the fantastic loaf of French bread and the french fries I enjoyed.  My niece made them for me.  They were delicious and I enjoyed them with a juice box.  And I may have had an apron on at the time.  A very.  Tiny.  Apron.

Man, check out those little fingers and that cute dress.  Just looking at that picture makes me laugh.  She’s a TINY PERSON.

1.  My sister’s driver picked me up at the airport.  He doesn’t stand around with a sign, though.  I call him when I land and then he’s there when I walk out.  He had popped the trunk open and so, without really thinking about it, I started putting my bags in the trunk and he ran around and opened the door for me.  I decided that next time, I’d let him lift the bags and I’d open my own car door.  It’s weird.

2.   When I arrived, I met the new nanny.  She is pretty awesome.  My nephew was sleeping and so I took my niece out to lunch.  We ate at a little bistro and, as we left, we passed an obese gentleman.  My niece looked up at me and said, “Why he ate too much?”  There’s little you can say to that.

3.  My nephew is a year and 8 months.  He likes it if you ask him to whisper a secret into your ear.  I leaned down and he whispered something softly into my ear.  I asked my brother-in-law what he said (because the kid is fluent in two languages and choose the one I don’ t understand – and apparently he happens to tell the same secret to everyone).  My brother-in-law said, “We don’t know why but he always whispers the same thing. ‘One egg.’”.

4.  You may recall that my niece has an imaginary friend named Katcho. My niece was pretending to speak on the phone.  She looked at me and said, “I’m speaking with Katcho’s nanny.”  My brother-in-law looked at me and said, “Yeah… we’re on our second degree of separation.”  I laughed.

5.   I told my sister that I wrote about Christmas in our family.  She said, “It’s a transaction.”  I said, “EXACTLY!  I called it prostitution.”  My sister said, “EXACTLY!”

We’re very practical people.

6.  Back home in Chicago, I went to bed last night at 8:30.  No, I’m not kidding.  That’s about 4 hours earlier than usual.  You know why?  Because kids are like Ambien to single people.  I ran and played for three days, soaking in as much of the little ones as possible.   And you know what?

HOLY CRAP, ARE THEY EXHAUSTING.